1812
GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES
THE LAMBKIN AND THE LITTLE FISH
by Jacob Ludwig Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
THE LAMBKIN AND THE LITTLE FISH
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THERE WERE once a little brother and a little sister, who loved each
other with all their hearts. Their own mother was, however, dead,
and they had a step-mother, who was not kind to them, and secretly did
everything she could to hurt them. It so happened that the two were
playing with other children in a meadow before the house, and there
was a pond in the meadow which came up to one side of the house. The
children ran about it, and caught each other, and played at counting
out.
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"Eneke Beneke, let me live,
And I to thee my bird will give.
The little bird, for straw shall seek,
The straw I'll give to the cow to eat.
The pretty cow shall give me milk,
The milk I'll to the baker take.
The baker he shall bake a cake,
The cake I'll give unto the cat.
The cat shall catch some mice for that,
The mice I'll hang up in the smoke,
And then you'll see the snow."
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They stood in a circle while they played this, and the one to whom
the word snow fell had to run away and all the others ran after him
and caught him. As they were running about so merrily the
step-mother watched them from the window, and grew angry. And as she
understood arts of witchcraft she bewitched them both, and changed the
little brother into a fish, and the little sister into a lamb. Then
the fish swam here and there about the pond and was very sad, and
the lambkin walked up and down the meadow, and was miserable, and
could not eat or touch one blade of grass.
Thus passed a long time, and then strangers came as visitors to
the castle. The false step-mother thought, "This is a good
opportunity," and called the cook and said to him, "Go and fetch the
lamb from the meadow and kill it, we have nothing else for the
visitors." Then the cook went away and got the lamb, and took it
into the kitchen and tied its feet, and all this it bore patiently.
When he had drawn out his knife and was whetting it on the door-step
to kill the lamb, he noticed a little fish swimming backwards and
forwards in the water in front of the kitchen-sink and looking up at
him. This, however, was the brother, for when the fish saw the cook
take the lamb away, it followed them and swam along the pond to the
house; then the lamb cried down to it,
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"Ah, brother, in the pond so deep,
How sad is my poor heart!
Even now the cook he whets his knife
To take away my tender life."
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The little fish answered,
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"Ah, little sister, up on high,
How sad is my poor heart
While in this pond I lie."
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When the cook heard that the lambkin could speak and said such sad
words to the fish down below, he was terrified and thought this
could be no common lamb, but must be bewitched by the wicked woman
in the house. Then said he, "Be easy, I will not kill thee," and
took another sheep and made it ready for the guests, and conveyed
the lambkin to a good peasant woman, to whom he related all that he
had seen and heard.
The peasant was, however, the very woman who had been
foster-mother to the little sister, and she suspected at once who
the lamb was, and went with it to a wise woman. Then the wise woman
pronounced a blessing over the lambkin and the little fish, by means
of which they regained their human forms, and after this she took them
both into a little hut in a great forest, where they lived alone,
but were contented and happy.
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THE END
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